MSNBC host: I’m not backing off my point that children belong to whole communities

posted at 8:01 pm on April 9, 2013 by Allahpundit

Actually, she is backing off. Here’s the thing about her now-famous MSNBC promo: Either she’s saying something radical or she’s saying something so banal that it’s barely even worth saying. The radical interpretation is that she thinks parents should have less say over how their children are raised and that “communities” should have a larger role. The very, very banal interpretation is that she thinks communities should do more to improve children’s lives and that thinking of them as “our children” might help forge that mentality. The money line in the promo that pointed to the radical interpretation was “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents” and embrace a more “collective notion” that kids “belong” to the entire community. Does that mean the community should be a child’s foremost tutor in values? That’d be pretty radical. Sarah Palin had some fun with the idea:

Dear MSNBC, if our kids belong to you, do your kids belong to us too? If so, can we take them hunting after church in our big pickup truck?

Or, rather, did Harris-Perry mean something so prosaic that no one would seriously offer it as some type of mission statement in a promo? We have our answer:

I started asking myself where did I learn this lesson about our collective responsibility to children. So many answers quickly became evident.

I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children.

I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys’ basketball teams in our town.

I learned it from my third-grade public school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after school so that I wouldn’t get bored and get in trouble…

I believe wholeheartedly, and without apology, that we have a collective responsibility to the children of our communities even if we did not conceive and bear them. Of course, parents can and should raise their children with their own values. But they should be able to do so in a community that provides safe places to play, quality food to eat, terrific schools to attend, and economic opportunities to support them. No individual household can do that alone. We have to build that world together.

Etc etc etc etc etc. The one interesting passage in the piece:

I’ll even admit that despite being an unwavering advocate for women’s reproductive rights, I have learned this lesson from some of my most sincere, ethically motivated, pro-life colleagues. Those people who truly believe that the potential life inherent in a fetus is equivalent to the actualized life of an infant have argued that the community has a distinct interest in children no matter what the mother’s and father’s interests or needs. So while we come down on different sides of the choice issue, we agree that kids are not the property of their parents. Their lives matter to all of us.

It’s not just pro-lifers who think the life of a fetus and of an infant are equivalent. Some pro-choicers have no qualms about disposing of either provided that you kill the infant quickly enough after birth. But lay that aside. The reason most pro-lifers oppose abortion isn’t because they think the community’s claim should override the parents’, it’s because they see the baby as an individual with rights irrespective of its state of development. You can believe that a child “belongs” to its parents, i.e. that their interest should trump the community’s except in cases of extreme abuse, without also believing that the child is chattel that the parent can destroy with impunity. It’s bizarre that a pro-choicer would even attempt to use an example like this in the course of lecturing about child welfare. Here’s a solution to the problem of resources for children being too scarce: Kill more of them in the womb and it never arises, right?

Blowback

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I know it might be hard for you to comprehend this but YES, HA is a huge echo chamber. There is a reason why most Americans are against your fringe conservative policies. You all sit here everyday debating issues most Americans don’t cares about.

Once again there is a reason why your party continues to lose big elections and why you all are constantly b!tching about how “you want your country back”. The country is evolving and moving away from your backward ideology.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:09 PM

An echo chamber, like HuffPo, you mean? Noted…

YOU need groups, don’t you; YOU need those polls in seeking validation.

You mention ‘party’. Jane, you ignorant sl*t! I’m not a Republican! I don’t fit anywhere in anything or any place you have contrived in your head about me.

Yes, you like the trite quaint term ‘evolve’. But ‘evolve’ into what? Your liberal concepts, where it is illegal for me to speak my mind outside your concept? College campuses are rife with what you envision. Free speech is paramount there? But punishment for refusing to toe the ‘accepted’ line is.

Here’s one: Just the accusation of wrongdoing is enough to convict you of a crime. Democrats tried that line in the 80s. How would that sit with you, if a girl wanted to spite you and made a false accusation against you.

Liberal ism isn’t so cool and trendy when you liberals have to suffer under it, too, is it?

I used to be very liberal. I know all your tactics, your ways, and everything else about you and how you operate.

Of course, parents can and should raise their children with their own values. But they should be able to do so in a community that provides safe places to play, quality food to eat, terrific schools to attend, and economic opportunities to support them. No individual household can do that alone. We have to build that world together.

It’s that “but” that says it all. A conservative would have said,” AND they should be able…

“The most terrible thing about materialism, even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offer a prospect of deliverance.”

“Those people who truly believe that the potential life inherent in a fetus is equivalent to the actualized life of an infant have argued that the community has a distinct interest in children no matter what the mother’s and father’s interests or needs.”

Another anti-science statement. The unborn aren’t potentially alive, they are living human beings at a particular stage of development. If they weren’t alive and growing she wouldn’t want them killed.

And our “distinct interest” is that human beings shouldn’t be destroyed just because they are unwanted.

I would suggest that the average American should care about the issues debated here irrespective of his/her opinion on that issue. Aren’t you tired of people obsessing over the Kardashians and similar losers in our “popular” culture?

Once again there is a reason why your party continues to lose big elections and why you all are constantly b!tching about how “you want your country back”. The country is evolving and moving away from your backward ideology.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:09 PM

Four years is a long time. I might be wrong but I still think in the long term it is very possible the re-election of Obama will come back to haunt the Democrat Party. This is just a hunch on my part.

I know it might be hard for you to comprehend this but YES, HA is a huge echo chamber. There is a reason why most Americans are against your fringe conservative policies. You all sit here everyday debating issues most Americans don’t cares about.

Once again there is a reason why your party continues to lose big elections and why you all are constantly b!tching about how “you want your country back”. The country is evolving and moving away from your backward ideology.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:09 PM

The education system is indeed broken. You have brain dead knuckle draggers running the show. Those same ignorant hordes reelected the worst president evah in 2012.
I cannot help that most people in your peer group make Kim Kardashian look like a genius.
They should care, but they are too busy watching American Idol and collecting welfare.

…….. The unborn aren’t potentially alive, they are living human beings at a particular stage of development. If they weren’t alive and growing she wouldn’t want them killed.

And our “distinct interest” is that human beings shouldn’t be destroyed just because they are unwanted.

eMatters on April 9, 2013 at 9:35 PM

Excellent excellent post.

Interesting the whole wanted , unwanted deal. If that is the measure for whether someone deserves life we are truly lost.

Why don’t we extend the left’s thinking about the unwanted to those that are born. Heck this is partially about making the world a better place…no? Let’s do it. / Maybe that explains liberal cities like Chicago.

I know it might be hard for you to comprehend this but YES, HA is a huge echo chamber. There is a reason why most Americans are against your fringe conservative policies. You all sit here everyday debating issues most Americans don’t cares about.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:09 PM

Which conservative issues are fringe, exactly?

About 50% of Americans are pro-life. More than that are pro-2nd Amendment. I’d feel well over 50% are on the side of less taxation in general. Which ones are “fringe,” HAL?

By the way, anytime and i mean anytime Americans come out to vote in large numbers, conservatives lose. It never fails. They only manage to win mid term elections that most Americans unfortunately don’t take too seriously.

Imagine if we had a popular vote system in this country, the dems would have captured all 3 chambers last Nov.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:24 PM

Then America will collapse. The Dems want to make as many people dependent on the government as possible, but the government itself is dependent on the working taxpayers, whose burden can get only so heavy before they become unable or unwilling to work anymore. At some point the government will find itself unable to feed all of its dependents, and then … “interesting times,” as the Chinese proverb puts it.

But as long as conservatives are humiliated, you’re OK with this, right?

Dear MSNBC, if our kids belong to you, do your kids belong to us too? If so, can we take them hunting after church in our big pickup truck?

God, I love this woman!

fight like a girl on April 10, 2013 at 12:13 AM

You gotta admit, Sarah Palin knows how to poke the enemy. I would imagine a slut like Harris-Perry is your typical lib who hasn’t darkened the door of a church in years. She probably takes it more as an affront that the kids she leases would be in a church let alone going hunting in a pickup with the Palins.

We already provide food stamps or EBT cards so the “community” children have food to eat but then the deadbeat parent(s) don’t feed them so we spend more money and take up school time to give them breakfast. What’s next, have the schools provide three meals a day and dormitory facilities?

All we are doing today is just rewarding bad behavior and not surprisingly the result is more of it. How about we begin to take aggressive action to address the root problem which is too many people having children that they know they cannot support and then dumping them on the community.

It is time to take off the blinders and realize that intentionally having children that you cannot support and then dumping them on the community is not a “right” but a crime.

MSNBC host: I’m not backing off my point that children belong to whole communities… “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents” and embrace a more “collective notion” that kids “belong” to the entire community.

They belong to and shall be assimilated into the collective. Resistance is futile.

nice. Gov Palin show does know how to frame the issue. If only Mitt could have/would have taken lessons he might be Pres today.

unseen on April 10, 2013 at 7:51 AM

.
I concur with your sentiment here- but unless you live in a blue state or liberal controlled area in a red state- you cannot appreciate how effective the Pravda Media is. And its not just at the national level either. We are lucky we still have access to a conservative perspective- but the majority of Americans do not. Mitt had no way to break through that. No one ever will again. The media is all encompassing and controlling- except FOX, yes.

Benghazi was probably the crowning achievement of media censorship- that no one ever heard of. And if they did- it was liberal lies being spewed.

The media controls the truth and the reality. They have the power to decide

What a bunch of twaddle. People who live in communities already have this figured out. Of course they are looking out for the neighbor kids, working as Scoutmasters, Den mothers, as coaches, field trip chaperones, etc. But narcissist libs aren’t likely to know anything about kind of thing so they have “epiphanies” like this MSNBC info-babe once in while. Get a life lady and live it. And stop telling me how to live mine!!

When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students’ papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion. As a teacher, I have unique responsibilities to the students in my classroom at Tulane University, and I embrace those responsibilities. It is why I love my job.

She apparently thinks that doing her JOB is some sort of community service. Ain’t she just a peach!

One would assume that she get paid for it. I mean, she does refer to it as a “job”. I think it’s a safe assumption that she performs certain tasks and is remunerated for her service. Certainly tuition is requested and paid for any students she might be grading, right? But hey, maybe moms and dads should be living up to their responsibility not just to pay for her services, but perform them as well.
Personally, I think she should ask for their money back.

This is another child-mind neo-communist cowardly deflecting from the real issue. Black men abandon their children at record levels, but she is too much of a leftist chickensh1t to address that fact and instead wants to dump the responsibility on the “community”.

Translation, addressing the real problem is too hard where whining for the gubment to tax “da rich” is easy.

When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students’ papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion…

She apparently thinks that doing her JOB is some sort of community service. Ain’t she just a peach!

One would assume that she get paid for it.

Murf76 on April 10, 2013 at 10:05 AM

She is exhibiting typical hard left wing socialist thinking. Apparently lefties like her do not know what they are paid to do and think their job gives them ownership rights, in this case a parental sense that the (college age) “children” belong to her, as a member of the collective community, as well as their parents. Hence she is “entitled” to engage in parenting activities.

It is her frackin’ “job” to grade papers. It is what she is paid to do. It gives her no parental rights, no ownership over the (college age) “children” she is instructing. They do not “belong” to the collective community nor to her because she is a part of it and grades their damn papers.

Do hair stylists think the people they service “belong” to them in some way? Do lawn care workers think the lawns they cut “belong” to them in some way? Only if they are daft.

Socialists think everything, and I mean everything, is collectively owned. It is the essence of their thinking and their world view.

However, in typical left wing hypocrite fashion that sense of collective ownership of everything does not include what they think is theirs and theirs alone. But other people’s stuff and their children, well it all really belongs to the collective “community”.

Scratch a socialist and underneath you will often find an inner Leninist/Stalinist authoritarian totalitarian.

Harris-Perry, you may remember, is the one who had the model of a woman’s reproductive system to mock the viewpoint scientific fact that a new human being is the result of fertilization. Apparently children do belong to their parents if the parents want to kill them, but if not then they’re the property of society.

Exactly. What’s interesting is that in the past they’ve been more careful to hide it. That’s what makes this MSNBC spot so telling. They’ve become comfortable enough during the ‘reign of Obama’ that they no longer bother themselves to dissemble. That is, not until after they’ve caught the backlash from letting the mask slip. Then it’s all… “well, I didn’t mean it that way”.

Hell yeah she did. She meant EXACTLY what she said. And it would serve her right if her local “community” took her up on it… by dropping their kids off at her house for free baby-sitting services. I’d laugh ’til my ribs split to see a line of cars doing drop-offs at her house… “Have fun. Be back at 6.” lol
I think she’d find more appreciation for her teaching job as a source of remuneration rather than a “community service” if she was actually performing one. /sarc

Her intent was clear when she used the leftist warm and fuzzy word “collective”…

I teach my children, family comes first, before anything else after God. The State has NO right to intrude on that. I teach them, family is your first line of defense against the harshness of the world, first refuge of comfort, not the government. That should be the dead last option. I don’t fear my children haven’t learned that, not when they already set sibling rivalry aside, and work together to achieve shared goals.. saving money for something,.. sharing..

This is what the ideal is.. not teaching them that the State is their family.

I’m old enough to remember when house fires were a lot more common, and can remember when, after loosing their home, classmates would speak of family, congregations, even just members of the local neighborhood, getting together to help them back on their feet. Donating toys, clothing, appliances, housewares.. quilts hand sewn and given,..

and help in rebuilding, or finding another home they could afford if renting. It was all given freely by people who knew, but for the grace of God,.. they could be next.

THAT is community, compassion freely given, by neighbors helping each other..

What she suggests is the cold sterile hands of a heartless and soulless state taxing everyone to pay for liberal charity by proxy,.. they won’t give anything themselves, but they damn well will hold a gun on you to pay for the programs that make them feel all good about themselves. Programs which more often than not, badly botch things up, and waste most of the money. Leaving the family not restored, but entirely dependent.

Maybe liberals are too cynical to believe people ever do good without the state holding a shotgun on them, but we remember when the government was never even thought of when people needed short term help.

By the way, anytime and i mean anytime Americans come out to vote in large numbers, conservatives lose. It never fails. They only manage to win mid term elections that most Americans unfortunately don’t take too seriously.

Imagine if we had a popular vote system in this country, the dems would have captured all 3 chambers last Nov.

I don’t buy the “back track” or “explanation”. This wasn’t an off the cuff statement. It wasn’t “Hey, Melissa, what do you think about education?” This was PRODUCED. It was WRITTEN. If it was supposed to mean “We all have a responsiblity to provide safe communities with opportunities for kids to flourish”, they could have done that ad.

No, this ad was a promotion of the idea that it’s dangerous we have some parents teaching their kids that global warming isn’t man made and will be followed in the 30-40 year cycle by global cooling. It reveals their desire to make sure all kids believe in SSM, redistribution of wealth, state run everything, etc.

You don’t accidentally use words like “collective” and “private idea that kids belong to their parents” when you do a produced and written spot.

Those people who truly believe that the potential life inherent in a fetus is equivalent to the actualized life of an infant have argued that the community has a distinct interest in children no matter what the mother’s and father’s interests or needs.

Two points here;

1. The reason that the Pro-life contingent considers the value of children to the community is because it recognizes the individual as a unique being with gifts and value *granted by God* (or any power higher than the government) and the POTENTIAL to bring great good to the human race. Not because they will contribute taxes or be productive in supporting the community (which is what I believe people like Harris-Perry think). However, the value to the community is distant second to the *real* reason for a pro-life stance, which is why Harris-Perry cherry picked that minor point.

2. Belief in individual liberty and natural rights means that the baby has the same protections as any other citizen to *life*. It is not the ownership of the baby to the parents that really matters, and certainly not any consideration of “the community”. It is the self-ownership that’s of primary importance. We all recognize that the un-born baby (and all children) has its own self-interest (to be born) to be considered and we protect its rights as we would with any person/citizen. The parents are the guardians (read welfare and protection) of the child until it can defend itself. The values that the parents pass on are, most often, in the best interest of the child, not the parents or the community. That is why the parents are *always* the best suited to raise the child. Recent history is filled with statist regimes that took control of the children for the purposes (whims) of “the community”, and it is never the individual’s desires that are a consideration.

As far as I’m concerned, if the child wishes to have no part in “the community”, then why should it be burdened with the designs of the community? From what I can see in Harris-Perry’s philosophy, the community has an interest in the child for the purpose of using it and placing it in debt to the community for future use. It is the basis of Marxism to say that the child belongs to the state, for the state’s purposes, not to itself. The child is entering into a contract (the community aiding in the raising, funding, and education of the child) that binds the child to the state. The community NEVER has the best interests of the child/individual in mind when it expends resources to aid/raise the child, it is an emotionless, anti-human, machine only interested in the usefulness of the humans under its control to bring it more power and more control.

By the way, anytime and i mean anytime Americans come out to vote in large numbers, conservatives lose. It never fails. They only manage to win mid term elections that most Americans unfortunately don’t take too seriously.

Imagine if we had a popular vote system in this country, the dems would have captured all 3 chambers last Nov.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:24 PM

Only because now the takers plus those who envy the successful and want to give take more to give to the takers outnumber those who believe in individual responsibility and charity to those in NEED. The government is horrible at taking care of people, both in meeting needs and in making sure they only help those who can’t help themselves. But despite all the evidence (like $1 Trillion spent on welfare programs in 2011, enough to give every household in America $60,000) you libs keep pushing for the government to take more and more.

Every Obama budget, at least before this latest joke, has eliminated the tax deduction for charitable giving, for everybody. Maybe you can take the talking points loop on your iPod off your ears for a minute and think about that in the context of “collective notion”. Hurt private charity, bring in more taxes, “own” all the children . . . Sound like a free country? Nope.

A couple things to note here folks. First, it is a safe bet that you could not slide a thin sheet of paper between the very scary quack and the Obamas. Second, Obama has taken the first step in having the commune take ownership of our children. National health care. By nationalizing health care (which is where we are going), the collective gets closer to owning our children.

Actually, my children do not “belong” to anyone; they are citizens of the United States of America. While they are minors, they will be the responsibility of my wife and myself. As part of the exercise of that responsibility, we will ensure that they don’t warp their minds by watching Harris-Perry on t.v.

Imagine if we had a popular vote system in this country, the dems would have captured all 3 chambers last Nov.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:24 PM

I missed this idiotic statement. You really are a stupid brain dead troll incapable of serious critical thinking.

You cannot just add up all the votes for the House and conclude this. Even left wing political science professors, at least ones well versed in statistics, would not come to that conclusion for at least a half dozen reasons. They would embarrass themselves academically if they said something like this and they know it.

For starters, you moron, voter turnout in each district depends on many variables and factors, and the total House vote for the entire nation is not one of them. If that mattered in determining the makeup of the House voter turnout in many districts would be very different and there is no way to make any definitive statements about how it would come out based on election turnouts where it does not.

By the way, anytime and i mean anytime Americans come out to vote in large numbers, conservatives lose. It never fails. They only manage to win mid term elections that most Americans unfortunately don’t take too seriously.

Imagine if we had a popular vote system in this country, the dems would have captured all 3 chambers last Nov.

HotAirLib on April 9, 2013 at 9:24 PM

hardly, a true conservative like Reagan swept the floor wit your ilk. and you couldn’t even beat Bush in 04.. and 2010 showed brand name liberals had historic losses.

You’re simply making things up now, you consider 51% of the vote a sweeping victory?.. the nation is nearly split in two, a product of a hyper left wing partisan media which functions as an adjunct to the democrat party. The swept every liberal scandal in the Obama years under the rug when they could..

Most Americans still watch CBS NBC and ABC.. they may as well just read Obama press releases, they carry the same information without any honesty.

But even they can’t shield you from owning this economy forever..

and when the crash comes, you can’t scapegoat it anymore, you own that freakshow Obamacare, and that bill is coming due. I see at least one doctor a month, and Obamacare is NOT popular in one of those waiting rooms, offices.. they are terrified of the consequences..

Or, rather, did Harris-Perry mean something so prosaic that no one would seriously offer it as some type of mission statement in a promo?

I find Obama and Hillary often put out some very liberal theme, and then when challenged, offer up the most, as AP writes, “banal” specific example, and follow it up with something like “don’t you think we should show concern for other people’s children?”, when OF COURSE we should show concern for other people’s children. When the real import of their point was that government should make decisions for children that are now made by their parents. That’s what they really believe and really meant to convey. Their specific example is a dishonest bait and switch. To cover up their socialistic agenda. Because for them lying is justified — the ends justify the means.

She apparently thinks that doing her JOB is some sort of community service. Ain’t she just a peach!

Murf76 on April 10, 2013 at 10:05 AM

Many teachers I work with & know & have met consider their decision to teach chirrun a sacrifice. And this is the word they often use when describing their teaching experience.
Now while it is true that those of us who go into teaching often do so bcs we love working with kids, that is usually not the sole reason.
It sure wasn’t for me. I chose teaching bcs I am a rancher’s wife & it fits perfectly into our lifestyle.
I do like working with kids. The adults are often morons.
The worst thing about teaching besides working with a lot of liberals is the fracking moronic parents who insist it is my job to force their child to learn with NO help from them.
This is why I am seriously considering quitting if I am ever able to.
You make yourself available, do everything you can to be the best teacher (& no, I’m not bad, I know I’m a good teacher) & maybe 1-2% of your students actually really want to do well & come in for help, make good effort, etc.
I have been vilified for giving students zeroes on work not turned in on time, making tests too hard, etc.
Parents really are the main problem in education & this woman truly feels probably she has a right over the parents in educating these kids.
Pretty much all teachers I know feel this elitist way.
That’s why most teachers won’t talk to me that know me.
I tell them it is not our business how a parent wants their child educated.

Matthew 5:44
King James Version (KJV)
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

I do pray for Ms. Harris-Perry’s soul, that she might be further guided by the scriptures.

Psalm 127:3-5 ESV

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Where the rubber really hits the road with her ideological position is enforcement of it. And make no mistake, she is not a lone-wolf. She is an agent of the propaganda arm of the federal government.

You think my children belong to the community? Try enforcing that. You’ll end up discovering that I have an unmovable position: my children ultimately belong to me, until they are adults, at which time they belong to themselves. I will back that up with all I have.

And that’s the end-game, isn’t it, Leftist scum? Individuals don’t even belong to themselves, but rather to the state, and in order to prove that, you’ll try to force us to the wall, until we have no choice but to capitulate or risk everything to stop you.

When your ideology begins attempting to enforce these doctrines with law, then the rubber hits the road. And with ObamaCare, I can already smell burnt rubber.

THe country is devolving into the logical outworking of secular humanism and relativism.

Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. A nation of fools tempting divine judgment.

tom daschle concerned on April 9, 2013 at 9:32 PM

The problem of course is that they don’t want to accept the responsibility that comes with the decisions they make. Hedonism can be fine if you are willing to reap what you sow. If welfare moms realize that uncle sam isn’t coming with more food and money maybe she will keep her womb empty for awhile until she can figure out how to handle that responsiblity.

I was once told by a very wise man who I met when I was just starting out in my career – he said you can do anything you want, you just need to be prepared to pay the price.

Modern day libs are against consequences and responsibility. Anyone who votes for them is the same. When the welfare state goes belly up – which some of us might actually see – you have a whole bunch of people who will be ill-equiped to deal with the new reality. That is the future every prog-lib, including the trolls on this site, wants for their followers. SHameful.

I have been vilified for giving students zeroes on work not turned in on time, making tests too hard, etc.
Parents really are the main problem in education & this woman truly feels probably she has a right over the parents in educating these kids.

To show you the difference between a responsible parent and an irresponsible one; when one of my kids comes home with a zero (very few times has this ever happened), the first one I blame is the daughter. I began with proper discipline of my children in doing their homework (first and foremost) and that they are responsible for, knowing the assignments, knowing the due dates, learning the material, and being prepared for tests/quizzes. Failure to get an ‘A’, is a failure to ‘do their job’. I am available 99% of the evenings after work, so if they need help on their math, science, history, etc. (not Spanish though, I stink at foreign languages) I provide all of the tutoring they can take (they typically request that I stop at some point, I suppose I’m a little verbose). The teachers at the girls’ (private Christian) school know they are responsible to me to do **their** job, and the only communication I have with them is concerning progress reports and any discipline issues.

From my perspective, the teacher is responsible for providing material and lessons in place of the parents during the school day, and hopefully with as much detail as the children desire. My job of teaching is never ending, and doesn’t just encompass the subjects taught in the school. We *are* a team, I just don’t expect to have to micromanage the teacher and their lessons. The lessons should be organized and developed in a manner that covers the topics thoroughly, otherwise why would I need to pay for their services? I don’t mind filling in the gaps, per se, but then again, I shouldn’t need to. Likewise, I don’t expect the teacher to have to deal with my misbehaving children, so I have taught them to be respectful and courteous to their instructors.